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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz displayed a flair for showmanship this afternoon at the Senate’s gun violence hearing as he sought to puncture the argument for a proposed ban on assault weapons.“What it bans, I would suggest to you, are scary looking guns,” he said.With a life size photo of a Remington 750, a popular hunting rifle used — as Cruz said, by millions of Americans – the senator argued that the proposed ban focuses on “cosmetic features” such as pistol grips that in no way change the lethality of a weapon.He produced a plastic pistol grip and held it to...

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners has advanced its position in the North American shale race adding another 6,900 miles of pipelines and nine processing plants to its empire. Kinder’s deal to purchase Copano Energy for $3.9 billion, announced late Tuesday, will expand its its 46,000-mile pipeline network and, perhaps more important, will give it processing capabilities in key shales plays including the Eagle Ford in South Texas. “Copano gives us a great platform in the Eagle Ford,” partnership President Park Shaper said Wednesday. The pipeline giant announced late Tuesday night that it would buy midstream natural gas company Copano Energy for...

U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) announced Sunday that she has spearheaded a bipartisan letter calling on the French government to cancel plans to release a convicted terrorist who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of an American and an Israeli diplomat. The letter, which was sent to France’s Ambassador to the United States, urges French officials to stop the release of George Ibrahim Abdallah, the former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade who was convicted in 1987 of killing an Israeli diplomat and a U.S. military attaché. The U.S. State Department has also expressed its opposition...

There is a showdown over guns coming to the Senate Wednesday, but no firearms are allowed. In advance of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday morning, two of the committee’s Republican members sent a complaint that they were refused permission to bring guns to the hearing. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas sent a letter Tuesday night to Chairman Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, that the purpose of bringing the firearms was to educate fellow Senators and “shatter the mistaken belief that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are a danger to society.” However,...

Texas Railroad Commissioner David Porter said Wednesday the state’s rapidly increasing oil production was posing “a very difficult economic question” for drillers faced with curbing oil production or flaring natural gas produced along with the oil. Natural gas is selling at only a fraction of the fuel content price of oil. And oil wells are being completed before natural gas pipeline connections can catch up. As a result, the Texas Railroad Commission issued 1,963 flaring permits last year, more than six times as many as it did in 2010. ... Texas oil production has increased rapidly in the last two...

That’s the question that keeps dogging the South Texas oil and gas field. Even as thousands of workers and major oil and gas companies flood into the region, investors have been reluctant to invest in houses, apartments and other permanent infrastructure. A when-will-it-bust mentality hangs over the region. But participants in the San Antonio Clean Technology Forum’s Eagle Ford Forum II event Tuesday said the oil and gas development appears to be here to stay, and that it’s time for the region to figure out how to manage everything from water issues to roads. Lance Robertson, vice president of Eagle...

... "This is usually full of .22 up here. .45 and .40... "We used to sell 30,000 rounds a month of ammo and we’ve done that in a week, and sometimes even a day in ammo," James said. What little they do have is generally high end and there is a limit on all purchases: a three-box max or 150 rounds at a time. That’s for all types and all sizes. It’s not just one store. Ron Casady has been shopping for weeks. "I noticed online and everything is out of stock. Click add to cart. Sorry we are out...

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The execution of Kimberly McCarthy was postponed by a Texas judge on Tuesday, the day she was to die, to give her lawyers time to argue that racial discrimination played a role in choosing the jury that convicted her. It was rescheduled for April 3 and, if carried out, McCarthy will be the first woman to be put to death in the United States in nearly three years.

An Hidalgo County Judge had ruled a teenager jailed on attempted murder charges will stand trial as an adult. Marquez Alvardo is accused shooting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Kelton Harrison in Hargill back in July 2012. According to reports, Alvardo was 16-years-old when he fired several shots at the federal agent striking him once. Officials say the teen, an older brother and his father pursued and shot Harrison while he was conducting surveillance in the area The former Economedes High School student, who is now 17-years-old, and will be transferred to the Hidalgo County jail. Judge Jesse...

A Dallas judge has halted the scheduled Tuesday night execution of a Texas woman who would have been the first woman put to death in the U.S. in three years. The order from state District Judge Larry Mitchell moves the execution of Kimberly McCarthy, 51, to April 3. McCarthy faced lethal injection for the 1997 beating, stabbing and robbery of a 71-year-old neighbor in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of Dallas.

Texas oil production rose by almost 100 million barrels in 2012 over the previous year, to the highest level in two decades. It was the fifth consecutive year with an increase. Despite a drop in oil prices last spring, economist Karr Ingham predicts production will rise again in 2013. Ingham offered a look at the state’s energy industry Monday as he presented the Texas Petro Index, the snapshot he developed to track trends for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers almost 10 years ago. The 3,300-member alliance receives monthly updates from Ingham, covering rig counts, drilling permits, well completions, industry...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) sent a letter to gunmakers, banks, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday, after Emanuel reportedly sent letters to banks asking that they stop doing business with certain firearm manufacturers. In the letter, Cruz urged the mayor to keep his attacks on the Second Amendment to his own city, and informed gunmakers that their companies and business would be welcome in the state of Texas. Here is how the letter reads: To the CEOs of Bank of America and TD Bank Group: It has recently been reported that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sent each of...

A Texas woman convicted of the gruesome slaying and robbery of her neighbor, a retired 71-year-old college psychology professor, is set to be the first woman put to death in the United States since 2010. A Dallas County jury already found former nursing home therapist Kimberly McCarthy guilty of the 1997 killing when evidence at the punishment phase of her trial tied her to two similar murders a decade earlier.“Once the jury heard about those other two, we were certainly in a deep hole,” recalled McCarthy’s lead trial attorney, Doug Parks. Jurors decided McCarthy should die. Her execution, set for...

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee and former Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement on the new push for comprehensive immigration reform and amnesty: “Americans overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration. They have pleaded with Congress to end the mass illegality for decades to little avail. All the while, millions have been added to the total of those illegally here. It’s time to fix that broken system. Now we are told that the Obama Administration and members of Congress say they have a plan that they promise will do the job....

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) issued the following statement regarding today’s bipartisan immigration reform proposal: I appreciate the good work that senators in both parties have put into trying to fix our broken immigration system. There are some good elements in this proposal, especially increasing the resources and manpower to secure our border and also improving and streamlining legal immigration. However, I have deep concerns with the proposed path to citizenship. To allow those who came here illegally to be placed on such a path is both inconsistent with rule of law and profoundly unfair to the...

A day after watching a 6-year-old neighborhood boy fly through the air when he was fatally struck by a teenage driver suspected of being intoxicated, Jane Withers refused to leave the spot where the boy's mother tried in vain to save him. Overcome by the magnitude of the tragedy that left Brandon Abrams' family grieving and a 17-year-old jailed on intoxication manslaughter charges, Withers helped set up a makeshift memorial soon after the incident at 6 p.m. Thursday in her Northwest Side neighborhood. Brandon was waiting on the sidewalk for an ice cream truck when he was struck. According to...

The hull of Royal Dutch Shell’s latest offshore platform, which traveled from South Korea, arrived Saturday from at a Texas port where it will be assembled before it sails to its final location in the Gulf of Mexico. The new offshore platform, the Olympus, traveled more than 18,000 miles in two months to Ingleside, Texas, where its topside will be assembled over the next two months. Shell designed the Olympus as a tension leg platform, which provides a large enough deck to process oil on deck. The Olympus will be Shell’s sixth tension leg platform and its largest to date....

There is a 43-year-old woman, born in Texas, who should be dead right now. In fact, she should have never been born. Forty years ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Texas law that prevented Jane Roe from ending the life of her unborn daughter was unconstitutional. But by the time the Supreme Court issued its decision in 1973, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1258350/posts she had already been born and adopted by a family—likely not knowing that all that ink spilled in Roe v. Wade was about her. Norma McCorvey is “Jane Roe.” She claimed then that her pregnancy was the result of...

Freshman state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, filed a bill on Thursday that would allow concealed handgun license holders to carry weapons on college campuses. The measure is similar to a bill filed by state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, one week earlier. Campus carry has been a controversial topic for multiple sessions and has come back into the spotlight after an argument on a Lone Star College campus in North Houston on Monday led to gunfire and multiple injuries. For opponents of campus carry, the takeaway is that more guns lead to more harm on otherwise safe campuses. For supporters, such...

A Texas teen says a Halloween movie inspired him to shoot his mother and sister to death after watching the main character in the film murder his family “with ease and with little remorse.” Jake Evans, 17, wrote a chilling four-page confession for the killing of his mother Jamie Evan, 48, and his younger sister, Mallory, 15. Jake writes in his confession that after watching Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of the horror movie “Halloween,” he lured his sister out of her room and shot her multiple times. He then killed his mother. “While I loaded the gun back up, I...