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George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president and father of the 43rd president George W. Bush, died on November 30, 2018, at the age of 94. He passed away less than eight months after his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush, died at the age of 92. The former president will lie in state in U.S. Capitol from Monday to Wednesday. There will be a state funeral for George H.W. Bush on Wednesday at the Washington National Cathedral, and a memorial service for the former president will be held on Thursday in Houston. He will be laid to rest at...

Frank Vickers was sitting on his couch watching "Jeopardy!" when he heard a knock at the door one evening in late September. Before he could stand up, a Bastrop County Sheriff’s deputy was standing in his living room. Vickers said the deputy told him to gather his belongings and get out of the house. The property was sold to a new owner.

Beto O’Rourke, weighing whether to mount a 2020 presidential bid, met recently with ­Barack Obama at his post- presidency offices in Washington. The meeting, which was held Nov. 16 at the former president’s offices in Foggy Bottom, came as former Obama aides have encouraged the Democratic House member to run, seeing him as capable of the same kind of inspirational campaign that caught fire in the 2008 presidential election. The meeting was the first sign of Obama getting personally involved in conversations with O’Rourke, who, despite his November loss in a U.S. Senate race in Texas, has triggered more recent...

A federal judge lifted a stay Friday in the civil rights lawsuits filed by more than 100 bikers arrested after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout in Waco and said the lawsuits can proceed. U.S. District Judge Alan Albright’s ruling during a 40-minute teleconference with attorneys in the cases does not include the two dozen bikers with pending criminal cases in McLennan County, only those with civil suits pending whose criminal cases have been dismissed or those who were never indicted. The lawsuits allege McLennan County, city of Waco and state officials violated the plaintiffs’ civil rights by wrongfully arresting the...

A member of the Texas Republican Party’s 2018 platform committee and former delegate for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential run proudly declared himself a “white nationalist.” Ray Myers took to social media last week and wrote “Damn right, I’m a white nationalist and very proud of it,” The Texas Observer reported Tuesday. “I am Anglo and I’m very proud of it, just like black people and brown people are proud of their race. I am a patriot. I am very proud of my country,” Myers explained in an interview with the outlet. “And white nationalist, all that means is America first....

Bill and Hillary Clinton's speaking event in Sugar Land has been rescheduled for a later date due to former president George H. W. Bush's death, the event organizer announced Monday. The Clintons, initially scheduled to speak at the Smart Financial Centre Tuesday evening, instead will fly to Washington, D.C., to "pay their respects to President Bush and his family," Live Nation Marketing Director Brian Birr said in an email.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a challenge by three conservation groups to the authority of President Donald Trump’s administration to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a victory for Trump who has made the wall a centerpiece of his hardline immigration policies. The justices’ declined to hear the groups’ appeal of a ruling by a federal judge in California rejecting their claims that the administration had pursued border wall projects without complying with applicable environmental laws. The groups are the Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and Defenders of Wildlife. Their...

Very few people took notice when far left Governor Jerry Brown signed the changes in AB1921 into law two years ago. As a result, California lost 7 of its 14 Republican House seats this election cycle. Ballot harvesting is illegal in most states. In Texas, New York and Pennsylvania they arrest people for ballot harvesting. Orange County, traditionally a conservative enclave in Southern California turned all blue after Democrats found hundreds of thousands of votes post election day. Republicans such as Mimi Walters, Dana Rohrabacher and Young Kim were all ahead election night only to lose their races after late...

He says he's Lyin’ Ted no more. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, declared on Saturday night that the ignominious nickname bestowed on him by President Trump during the 2016 campaign season has been relegated to the annals of history -- as has the feud between Cruz and Trump. "This was also a breakthrough year in which my presidential sobriquet went from 'Lyin’ Ted' to 'Beautiful Ted,'" Cruz joked during a speech at the Gridiron Club. Cruz was joking, in the spirit of the roast. He also quipped: “I gotta say, that new pet name felt like it really hit the mark....

HOUSTON — When the curtain parted in College Station, Tex., revealing a two-toned blue locomotive standing nearly 16 feet tall and bearing the number 4141 in his honor, former president George H.W. Bush looked around excitedly, his face breaking into a smile. One word left his lips: Wow. Thirteen years later, that same Union Pacific locomotive will escort the 41st president to his final resting place in College Station on Thursday afternoon after funeral ceremonies in Washington and Houston. The train carrying his remains will leave a Union Pacific Railroad facility in Spring, a community north of Houston, and travel...

Union Pacific is honored to participate in the funeral procession for President George H.W. Bush. The funeral train leaves Union Pacific's Westfield Auto Facility Dec. 6 at 1 p.m. and should arrive at College Station across from Kyle Field at 3:25 p.m. The Westfield Auto Facility is not open to the public.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has announced that President George H. W. Bush will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol this week, giving Americans a final chance to pay their respects. The 41st president passed away peacefully in his home in Houston Friday night. The late President George H.W. Bush will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda beginning with an arrival ceremony on Monday at 5:00 p.m. ET. The public is invited to pay their respects from Monday, December 3 at 7:30 p.m. ET until Wednesday, December 5 at 7:00 a.m. ET.— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) December 1, 2018...

FULL TITLE: Trump will send his Air Force One plane to Texas after 'all of the seats' are taken out to bring former President George H.W. Bush's remains to Washington where he will lie in state before dramatic funeral and burial in Texas The remains of former President George Herbert Walker Bush will return to Washington in the most dramatic and distinguished fashion possible, occupying the plane that normally serves as Air Force One. President Donald Trump told reporters of the plan aboard the aircraft as they returned from the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 'So what we’re doing...

Two Texas officials are calling on Tarrant County Republicans to defeat an effort by some in their party to remove a Muslim from local GOP leadership. At issue is a controversial effort that began months ago when a small group of local Republicans began pushing to remove Shahid Shafi, a Muslim, from the post of vice chairman. Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who lived in Fort Worth before being elected to statewide office, was the first to weigh in on Friday. “I urge the Tarrant County GOP to stop this attempt to remove a hardworking county party official based...

The founder of Southwest Key made millions from housing migrant children. His nonprofit has stockpiled taxpayer dollars and possibly engaged in self-dealing with top executives. Juan Sanchez grew up along the Mexican border in a two-bedroom house so crowded with children that he didn’t have a bed. But he fought his way to another life. He earned three degrees, including a doctorate in education from Harvard, before starting a nonprofit in his Texas hometown. Mr. Sanchez has built an empire on the back of a crisis. His organization, Southwest Key Programs, now houses more migrant children than any other in...

The accuser is Tchiya Amet, a “musician, healer, and teacher” who says she studied Galactic Astronomy in the graduate program at the University of Texas in Austin and she wanted to become the first black female astronaut. In a blog post in October 2014, she claimed she was a grad student at the same time Tyson was there, and that he drugged and raped her.

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens plans to release his book, "The Making of a Justice: My First 94 Years,” in May, not long after his 99th birthday. The New York Times interviewed him for a piece about his memoir, at which point he laid out the three Supreme Court decisions he still believes, to this day, were the wrong decision.District of Columbia v. HellerThe 2008 landmark decision, often referred to as Heller, was a 5-4 decision that upheld an individual's right to possess a firearm for self-defense. There is no need to be part of a militia in order...

A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward. Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr....

Contractors will begin building seven border wall gates today in Cameron County (around Brownsville, Texas).

In 2015, a high-quality pre-k program was created and funded $118 million by the legislature, with the support of Governor Greg Abbott. In 2017, lawmakers voted not the fund it again, although schools still had to meet the program requirements, even without the money. On the eve of the 2019 legislature, the SBOE recommendation would not only restore the funding, but expand pre-k from half-days to full days.